Historical Memory, Neoliberal Spain, and the Latin American Postcolonial Ghost: On the Politics of Recognition, Apology, and Reparation in Contemporary Spanish Historiography
Joseba Gabilondo has taught Historical Memory, European at several universities: Duke University, Bryn Mawr Uni- Fundamentalism, and Colonial Ghosts versity, SUNY Stony Brook and University of Florida. o paraphrase the opening of the Communist Currently he is an Assistant Manifesto, a [new] specter is haunting Eu- Professor at the Center for rope—the specter of fundamentalism.1 These Basque Studies, University of T days the term “fundamentalism” is mostly applied to Nevada, Reno. He has pub- different forms of resistance to the West, i.e. Muslim lished several articles on Hol- fundamentalism. My use of fundamentalism refers to lywood cinema and block- something quite different: legitimations of the West. busters in the context of glo- bal culture, Spanish nation- More specifically, I use “fundamentalism” to refer to alism, postnationalism, mas- the neoliberal turn taken by many European (and culinity, and queer theory. He American) states which re-imagine themselves in a has just finished an essay col- neonationalist/imperialist fashion. They do so by for- lection on contemporary getting their colonial past while turning their internal Spanish-, American- and others into the only racist and fundamentalist sub- French-Basque literature en- jects. Le Pen’s ultra-right politics in France or the well- titled Nazioaren hondarrak documented case of xenophobia surrounding El Ejido (The Remnants of the Na- in Spain are two clear examples of the kind of ideologi- tion). He is currently work- cal processes to which I refer. In this respect I equate ing to finish a cultural and 2 postnational history of fundamentalism with neoliberalism here. Basque literatures from the I will focus on contemporary Spanish historio- Renaissance to the twenty- graphical discourse and its central role in articulating first century entitled Before this neoliberal, fundamentalist ideology. But before Babel. focusing on Spain, I would like to cite several French and German scandals in order to expose the general European scope of this fundamentalist ideology. I have chosen the public form of the “scandal,” because a “scan-
Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 7, 2003 250 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
dal” captures the emerging yet non-hege- in France or are French citizens. D’Estaign’s monic status of any new ideology—a sta- latest remarks echo those he made in 1990: tus that the very nature of the scandal re- “Immigration must be totally stopped” veals and conceals at the same time. The (Huntington 201). D’Estaign’s declara- scandal reflects an abject event or dis- tions attest to more generalized European course that the majority of the popula- fears towards the uncanny postcolonial tion desires but cannot embrace or rejects return of the colonial subject which is now but cannot renounce. These scandals are transformed into the global harbinger of ultimately about the past and its memory. European demise. His remarks show that They point to the emergence of a new Le Pen is not an island phenomena and ideology endowed with a very specific his- that we are dealing with a larger ideologi- torical imagination: a neoliberal, funda- cal problem. Very correctly, the Turkish mentalist memory. representative to the Convention, Ali In November of 2002, Valéry Gis- Tekin, denounced d’Estaign as a “funda- card d’Estaing, the ex-president of the mentalist” (Le Monde, my translation). French Republic and head of the Con- After all, it is French fundamentalism that vention for the Future of the European is at stake. Union, gave an interview to Le Monde and In Germany, in 1999, the exhibit made several remarks about the rejection “War of Extermination: Crimes of the of Turkey’s application to the EU. He Wehrmacht, 1941-1944” became the fo- noted that Turkey does not belong in the cus of a national scandal that forced the European Union; in his own words, “it authorities to close the exhibit and to can- would represent the end of Europe” (Le cel its travel to the USA (although it was Monde, my translation). D’Estaing said seen in Austria). This exhibit, organized that Turkey’s “capital is not in Europe, by experts appointed by the Hamburg 95% of its population is outside Europe; Institute for Social Research, displayed a it is not a European country” (Schwei- wide array of visual material, mainly pho- zerische, my translation). He concluded tographs, which made clear the involve- that admitting Turkey, an official candi- ment of the German regular army or date since 1999, would open the Euro- Wehrmacht in the Holocaust. Minor mis- pean gates for other North African states: takes in the labeling of few photographs, “you will have a Moroccan request (for EU whereby some victims killed by the So- membership), the King of Morocco said viet secret police appeared as murdered it long time ago” (Schweizerische, my by the German army, created the scandal translation). that prompted the authorities to cancel One would have to wonder whether the exhibit. However, and as Omer Bartov French colonial rule in Africa in the nine- explains, teenth and twentieth centuries was Euro- pean, and thus, whether the postcolonial What many Germans found hard to effects of France’s imperialism are Euro- take was that the exhibition demon- pean as well. Ultimately one could inter- strated in the most graphic manner pret d’Estaign’s remarks to mean that the complicity of Wehrmarcht soldiers French postcolonial subjects are no longer in the Holocaust and other crimes of European let alone French, even if they live the regime, especially in the occupied Joseba Gabilondo 251
parts of the Soviet Union and Yugo- summary of the German situation in 1993 slavia [...]. The most obvious ramifica- still holds true for the present: tion of such revelations was [...] that the majority of Germans knew about In Germany, the Holocaust signifies the mass killing perpetrated by the re- an absence of Jews and a traumatic gime and that large numbers of them burden on national identity, in which actually took part in or directly facili- genuine attempts at mourning are tated the implementation of genocidal hopelessly entangled with narcissistic policies. (xi-xii) injury, ritual breast-beating, and re- pression. (257) The long debate over a still unbuilt Holocaust memorial shows, as Brian Ladd The myriad of Spanish scandals of the points out, how a unified Germany can same sort underscore this generalized Eu- no longer afford not to have one (168- ropean ideological reorganization. In his 73). Nevertheless, the scandals and de- address at the 2001 Cervantes Prize awards bates go on. Similar “scandals” continue the King, Juan Carlos I stated that Castilian to arise in the intellectual circles in Ger- language was not imposed in Latin Amer- many. Jürgen Habermas’s debate with his- ica: torians Andreas Hillgruber, Ernst Nolte, and Michael Stürmer, known as the Histo- Nunca fue la nuestra lengua de impo- rikerstreit, seemed to be settled by the late sición, sino de encuentro, a nadie se le ’80s (Maier), but the new scandal that obligó nunca a hablar en castellano: erupted between Habermas and Peter fueron los pueblos más diversos quie- Stolerdijk, around the latter’s Rules for the nes hicieron suyos por voluntad Human Park (my translation, 1999), a libérrima el idioma de Cervantes. (Efe book with authoritarian overtones, proves “Premio”) that German society’s difficult memory with its own violent and racist past con- Later that year the Minister of Culture of tinues to be an uncanny moment that is the right-wing Partido Popular, Pilar del repeatedly repressed but keeps coming Castillo, declared that minority languages back to haunt German society. The im- such as Basque, Galician, or Catalan had pact of D. J. Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing not been repressed under the Franco dic- Executioners (1996) in Germany, because tatorship. In her words: “habría que ver it emphasized the individual and con- cuándo se ha prohibido hablar una lengua scious participation of Germans, rather en España y con qué intensidad” (Efe than that of structural societal factors, in “Lenguas”). The historical record shows the Holocaust, is also another important otherwise; thus, we have to question the event in this mapping of Germany’s new fundamentalist ideology that permits such fundamentalist refashioning. It demon- perceptions. strates how Germany’s recollections with All of these “scandals” point to a new its own violent and racist past continues climate in Spanish and European politics. to be an uncanny moment that is repeat- These isolated anecdotes reflect an active edly repressed but keeps coming back to effort on the part of European states to haunt German society. Andreas Huyssen’s forget their histories of colonial, racial, and 252 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
ethnic violence. Although these scandals flicts, but the conflicts that pose the are not related or comparable per se, they greatest dangers for stability are those respond, nevertheless, to the same logic. between states or groups from differ- They articulate a new neonationalist/im- ent civilizations. (36) perialist ideology based on an active his- torical oblivion of colonialism and racism. Consequently, he concludes his work with To deny the imposition of Castilian in the following apocalyptic assertion: Latin America, for example, is a way to open the gates for other denials, such as On a worldwide basis Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding the putative disavowal of the holocaust of to barbarism, generating the image of 70 million natives in Latin America at the an unprecedented phenomenon, a hands of Spanish imperialism during the global Dark Ages, possibly descend- sixteenth century. Actually, the above scan- ing on humanity. (321) dals prompted the majority leader of the Spanish parliament, Luis de Grandes, to These “civilizational conflicts” are, I con- state exactly such a thing. He declared that tend, nothing but a new, naturalized, Castilian “no ha sido un idioma de colisión, neoliberal representation of postcolonial como no fue de colisión la conquista española and postnational tensions. As such they [in Latin America]” (Efe “España,” my are inexorably connected to modern his- emphasis). The fact that such words went tory and cannot be forgotten or dismissed uncontested and did not give rise to a larger as European fundamentalism is attempt- scandal proves the strength of this new ing to do through its new neonationalist/ neoliberal, fundamentalist ideology. imperialist ideological refashioning. In this This new Western fundamentalism respect Fukuyama and Huntington sim- can be traced to 1992, when Francis Fuku- ply represent two different moments in yama expounded the virtues of neoliberal- the elaboration of the same neoliberal ide- ism by claiming that it represented a new ology. An initial moment of global hege- world order and, moreover, humankind’s monic neoliberalism (Fukuyama) is fol- global teleology. This was an early Hegelian lowed by a reformulation whereby neo- attempt to justify this neonationalist/im- liberalism is legitimized as the civili- perialist ideology. However, only five years zational harbor haunted by global barbar- later, in 1997, Samuel Huntington turned ism (Huntington). Recent European fun- the global table by stating that, rather than damentalism represents a new step in the a neoliberal common future, we might direction of repressing the global history have a clash of civilizations and a prolif- that haunts neoliberalism, thus disavow- eration of irreconcilable fundamentalisms. ing Huntington’s fears and reaffirming the As he argues, universal endurance of neoliberal Europe à la Fukuyama. [T]he forces of integration in the world A starting point to counter funda- are real and are precisely what are gen- erating counterforces of cultural asser- mentalism and its repression of history is tion and civilizational consciousness a theoretical reconsideration of ghosts. Fol- [...]. The world is indeed anarchical, lowing Derrida, Labanyi (2002) argues rife with tribal and nationality con- that: Joseba Gabilondo 253
ghosts are the traces of those who were Houston, Dallas [...]. One writer (L. not allowed to leave a trace; that is, the Weissberg) has noted the irony, that victims of history and in particular while ‘there is no Holocaust museum subaltern groups, whose stories— in Germany,’ in the United States there those of the losers—are excluded from are more than one hundred Holocaust the dominant narratives of the victors museums and research centres, sug- [...]. It can in some respects be argued gesting that ‘the founding of Holo- that postmodernism [...] is character- caust museums’ is ‘a particularly Ameri- ized by the recognition—in the spec- can phenomenon.’ (147) tral form of the simulacrum—of modernity’s ghosts. (1-2) Cole explains America’s embrace of the Holocaust as a negative way to emphasize Following Labanyi’s formulation, I ana- American nationalist ideology rather than lyze the case of a new postmodern twist, actually reflecting on the Holocaust itself. ultimately triggered by globalization: After analyzing the architecture of the Europe’s postmodern, neoliberal dismissal Holocaust Memorial Museum in Wash- of modernity’s colonial subjects. Europe ington D.C., Cole concludes: is deploying new forms of neonationalist/ imperialist fundamentalism so that the Already a framework is established that latter’s postcolonial return is once again teaches us to see the ‘Holocaust’ as an repressed—hence their new ghostly reap- un-American crime. We—like the US pearance in postmodernity. They are twice troops [that liberated the Jewish pris- ghostly. oners in 1945]—have encountered In this fundamentalist repression I someone else’s crime, and stare— envision, where racialized, ethnic, and hands-on hips—with a mixture of postcolonial subjects are turned into disgust and fascination. The brutality ghosts, it is important to underscore the of the ‘Other’ is a thing that both hor- most notable—and perhaps only—excep- rifies and comforts. (155) tion: the Jews of the Holocaust. The Ho- In short, monumentalization does not locaust is the only act of mass violence guarantee historical memory; after all perpetrated by the West, which so far re- mains immune to European historical memory is always political. Yet, there is oblivion—even slavery is dismissed el- no memory without cultural markers egantly from most European thinking.3 (museums, school curricula, etc.), which This scenario is complex and cannot be must be politically and historically dis- reduced to a single historical dimension, cussed and interpreted alongside differ- as the North American case makes clear. ent acts of reparation and apology. Even Tim Cole explains in his provocative book, Spain’s King Juan Carlos I asked, in 1992, Selling the Holocaust, that the USA has for forgiveness from the Sephardi commu- become the country of Holocaust memo- nity for their expulsion from Spain in rials and museums: 1492; yet this gesture was not extended to the Muslim or Andalusi community America has embraced the ‘Holocaust.’ (Arias, Gibson) or to Latin America. In It is seemingly everywhere, in New 2002, Mohammed Ibn Azzuz Hakim, the York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, most important Moroccan Hispanist, 254 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies wrote an open letter to the King asking apology, and reparation, so that ghosts for the same kind or redress for the enter history and leave behind a spectral Andalusi community, which also suffers realm. from immigrational discrimination. As of This article explores the tensions 2003, that letter remains unanswered between neoliberal fundamentalism, his- (Gibson). torical memory, and redress by focusing We can draw one important lesson on a very specific ideological institution: from the Jewish Holocaust: the acts of rec- recent Spanish historiography. Official ognizing the need for apologies and repa- historical writing is one of the main disci- rations, which also require erecting a ma- plines involved in the refashioning of a terial memory (monuments, institutes, neonationalist/imperialist erasure of past etc.), become necessary steps towards violence. More specifically, this article avoiding future historical denials or eli- draws attention to the ghost that Spanish sions. On a very positive note, Roy L. historiography is attempting to actively Brooks, the editor of the most compre- forget: the postcolonial. Nineteenth-cen- hensive compendium on reparations tury Latin American processes of indepen- (When Sorry Isn’t Enough), salutes our times dence (1810-25) are absent from most as “The Age of Apology” (3-11). He states Spanish historiography but, at the same that: time, they haunt the very same fundamen- talist refashioning of a contemporary 4 [W]hat is happening is more complex Spain to the point of constituting it. At than ‘contrition chic,’ or the canoniza- this point, Spain is the second largest in- tion of sentimentality. The apologies vestor in Latin America (Relea “Inversio- offered today can be described as ‘a nes”) and the latter has become the main matrix of guilt and mourning, atone- scenario for Spanish neoimperialist, capi- ment and national revival.’ Remorse talist fantasies—hence the need to ap- improves the national spirit and proach Latin America in a ghostly man- health. It raises the moral threshold of ner. In turn, this new globalized presence a society. (3) of Spain in Latin America is giving rise to anti-Spanish nationalist sentiments After which he calls for a “theory of re- among many Latin American nation-states dress” (6) that includes recognition, apol- (Relea “Duhalde”). As Manuel Marín al- ogy, and reparation. Although, the new ready warned in 2001: European fundamentalist ideology is ren- dering more difficult to make a case for Un sentimiento nacionalista contra las any form of redress, I would like to un- inversiones españolas en sectores cla- derscore that recognition, apology, and ves de su economía emerge cada vez reparation are practices that shield us con más fuerza. Este fenómeno que against the future return of fundamental- ahora se presenta en Argentina puede ist violence, even though the difficulties extenderse a otros países, donde ya se han producido episodios que han crea- of remembering and witnessing are many do problemas de imagen al Reino de and still open to debate (Agamben Rem- España. Naturalmente este sentimien- nants, Lang). In short, it is important to to antiespañol será objeto de demago- mark history through acts of recognition, gia y manipulación. Joseba Gabilondo 255
At the same time, Latin America is be- postcolonial history. Conversely the new coming one of the most important sources Latin American immigration to Spain is of (illegal) immigration to Spain (Ruiz addressed as a new imperialist phenom- Olabuénaga), thus reenacting a new glo- enon. Neonationalist/imperialist histori- balized and ghostly ideology of Spanish ography implies that Spain’s presence in imperialism towards Latin American im- Latin America has not changed since 1492 migrant subjects. In this context, the re- and, furthermore, has never been colonial- examination of the ghostly status of post- ist and violent but rather “natural” as the colonial Latin America in Spanish histo- life of the “Spanish nation” itself—hence riography is central. the need to stress, for example, that Span- Juan Sisinio Pérez Garzón, elaborates ish language was never imposed in Latin a (meta)history of neonationalist/imperi- America. In short, Spanish historiography alist historiography in order to rewrite is not only anachronistic or romantic, as Spain’s historical memory: Pérez Garzón argues, but also global and neonationalist/imperialist. Desentrañar, por tanto, los términos de ese [historiographical] nacionalis- Negative Subjects mo no reconocido como españolista, con esa doble fuente de alimentación, in Nineteenth-Century History la tradicionalista y la liberal democrá- tica, exigiría desmenuzar con detalle Hayden White’s description of nine- las implicaciones de cada concepto que, teenth-century historiography still holds por supuesto, ni son neutros ni son true for its contemporary Spanish coun- unidireccionales. Sobre semejante he- terpart: rencia historiográfica se enraíza lógica- mente la mayoría de la producción de in so far as historians of the second los historiadores españoles actuales [...]. half of the nineteenth century con- En definitiva, seguimos atados a los tinued to see their work as a combina- modos nacionalistas de escribir la his- tion of art and science, they saw it as a toria tal y como se fraguaron en el siglo combination of romantic art [nation- del romanticismo. (108-09) alist] on the one hand and of positiv- istic science on the other. (42) Following Pérez Garzón, I would like to emphasize that one must also criticize the From Ramón Tamames’s Una idea de present, global effects of this neonational- España. Ayer, hoy y mañana (1984) to the ist/imperialist historiographical writing; more recent work by Juan Pablo Fusi, it is not simply an anachronistic and ro- España. La evolución de la identidad nacio- mantic way of writing Spanish history. nal (2000), the factual narrative of a na- Contemporary, Spanish historiography tional subject that is essentially political serves in a very calculated way to script (kings, ministers, parties) continues to be the new fundamentalist redeployment of the underlying and undisputed paradigm Spain in globalization, so that the new of historical writing. The widely discussed Spanish presence in Latin America is based report of the Academy of History and its on and legitimized by an active oblivion other recent publications, such as España of Latin America’s independence and como nación (2000) also respond to this 256 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
historical logic.5 Yet this empiricist, na- in his Estudios sobre el siglo XIX español, he tionalist logic is inscribed in a larger dis- concludes: “qué suma de facilidades desa- cursive structure, which is regulated by a provechadas en 1840: juntas, milicia, mu- negative or absent subject. In order to nicipios, relance industrial tras la guerra, analyze this discursive and subjective adaptación de fueros [...]” (33). In short, negativity, I will first examine the left-wing for Tuñón de Lara, the first half of the nine- historiography that was hegemonic till the teenth century is a history wasted, “desa- Partido Popular’s raise to power in 1996, provechada,” for the development of a and then I will proceed to analyze the newer missing subject: the bourgeoisie and its neonationalist/imperialist historiography modern revolution. Similarly Ramón that emerges in the 1990s and becomes Tamames, discusses the Spanish Restora- dominant at the turn of the millennium. tion in his Una idea de España and con- If one approaches the Marxist-in- cludes: spired historiography of Spain—devel- oped by historians such as Miguel Artola, [E]l 98 sellaba, en sus últimos días, el Manuel Tuñón de Lara, Josep Fontana, or final del imperio español. Y simbólica- Ramón Tamames—not as historiography mente se cerraba la primera parte de la but rather as narrative discourse (White), Restauración, que no habiendo resuel- one finds an interesting discursive repeti- to ninguno de los problemas princi- tion. When presenting the nineteenth pales internos del país, había perdido las últimas provincias ultramarinas. century, that is, the beginning of the for- (127) mation of the so-called modern, Spanish nation-state, these historical accounts turn Once again Spain’s historical lack of solu- into negative narratives. They are struc- tions to modernization defines the Resto- tured around an absent subject, a miss- ration. Tamames continues his negative ing actant: the bourgeoisie and its mo- account by stressing that: dernity. Tom Lewis captures this dilemma when he labels the Spanish nineteenth cen- [L]a Restauración [...] supuso un pac- tury “the century that has no name” (7). to oligárquico [...] para frenar a otras According to these histories, moder- fuerzas emergentes [...]. Y sin preten- nity and the bourgeoisie are the two sides der que la Restauración pudiera haber of the same historical actantial structure evolucionado con sabiduría hacia un that waves and unravels the narrative of régimen liberal y de democracia consi- Spain as a national subject. At the same derable, al estilo británico, lo cierto es time, and following these accounts, the que sus prohombres no asumieron lo Spanish, historical subject (modernity/ que podría haber sido un programa bourgeoisie) ultimately appears to be como el propuesto por los regeracio- missing or simply fails as historical sub- nistas. (131) ject. In turn, this actantial absence turns the above narratives into negative histo- In short, the Spanish Restoration is a failed ries—histories of an unaccounted subjec- or absent British democracy for Tamames. tive absence. When Tuñón de Lara reflects To my knowledge, Adrian Shubert is on the aftermath of the first Carlist War the first historian to reflect on this problem Joseba Gabilondo 257 of a negative narrative of an absent sub- tion that revolutionary change was ject in Spanish historiography. As he re- overseen by the ‘wrong’ social group. marks: (5)
Such interpretations are based on Yet, with this elegant and positive solu- Spain’s failure to hold to an already tion, Schubert only displaces the histori- scripted scenario which, it is believed, cal problem for, although now there is a was successfully acted out elsewhere. revolution, the latter does not have a new Because there was no fully developed historical agent. The ancient regime con- industrial society, because large estates tinues and adapts historically, which remained in place, because the agrar- shows that the need to narrate a “revolu- ian elite was dominated by the nobil- tion” and a new “historical subject” de- ity and, allegedly, lacked a certain out- rive from Shubert’s necessity to conform look and because the bourgeoisie made peace with it, Spain did not have a to hegemonic European historiography bourgeois revolution. (3) rather than from a desire to follow his- torical accuracy. Furthermore, the advent Schubert, in an attempt to give a positive of the Civil War and Francoism make very solution and, thus, remedy the narrative questionable the success of this liberal of absences prevalent to that point, shifts revolution by default. Thus, Shubert’s the subject of history from the bourgeoi- solution remains a displaced negative his- sie to the advance of legal gains. Quoting tory. Bartolomé Clavero, Shubert states: At the limit of this tendency, we find a whole new array of historical accounts [F]rom this perspective then, the that stress the proximity to and similarity bourgeois revolution is what Clavero with Europe (Tortella, Ringrose, etc.). has called ‘a radical change in the way Yet, these historical narratives whose aim society is constituted’ and one which is “to look like Europe,” ultimately remain ‘does not imply any change in the bound to a foundational absence, which groups which dominate.’ It is a fun- is compensated for with arguments for damentally a legal, and not an eco- similarity to other European experiences. nomic, revolution. (5, my emphasis) As Pérez Garzón concludes: After finding a positive, historical pres- tal planteamiento se realiza desde la ence for a liberal legal framework, Schubert perspectiva de una Europa de tan re- concludes by turning it into the narrative ciente creación que surgen interro- subject of his own history: gantes cuya dilucidación [...] tienen un punto de partida sin definir o For the time being the most conve- explicitar. Ante todo, si ese molde eu- nient solution is to replace the term ropeo que se proyecta hacia el pasado bourgeois revolution with one less está basado en el modelo francés, el freighted with implications, such as alemán o el polaco, o si la Europa occi- liberal revolution. Such a term is ap- dental excluye a la Rusia zarista y orto- plicable to Spain in the first forty years doxa, o si el Mediterráneo agrario y of the nineteenth century and allows cristiano se puede comprender sin la us to resolve the apparent contradic- otra orilla del Mediterráneo musulmán 258 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
[...]. Porque, a juzgar por el tono de la toriography starts from an assumption 180 mayoría de las obras citadas, se da por degrees removed from the one just exam- supuesto que Europa es sólo esa Euro- ined. It assumes Spain’s historical “differ- pa del capitalismo triunfante en las ence” as its positive starting point. Allow regiones de Manchester o de Renania, me to concentrate on one of its most il- y de cuyo ritmo, sin embargo, España lustrious representatives, Juan Pablo Fusi, siempre estuvo unos cuantos pasos por detrás. Por eso el método comparativo and his España. La evolución de la identidad [...] se abandona en ciertos momentos nacional (2000). If we read Fusi’s factual para recurrir de modo sorprendente a and empiricist account of the formation explicaciones poco fundamentadas. of Spain, suddenly modernity or the bour- (25-26) geoisie are no longer the narrative sub- jects driving this new history; now it is In short, these histories too are de- the “Spanish nation.” Ironically enough, termined by an absence—capitalist Eu- once Fusi identifies a new and positive rope. They distort Spain’s history in be- subject at the center of his revisionist his- half of an absent European normalcy. The tory, this subject still evades detection and, origin of this European absence, or of its once again, slips into yet another narra- subject (modernity/bourgeoisie), lies in tive of absences. the fact that Spain is determined in the Because Fusi shifts the subject of nineteenth century by colonial loss, not Spanish history to the “nation,” the frame- by imperialist expansion (Hobsbawn), work of his neonationalist narrative ex- and thus the postcolonial subject of Latin tends all the way back to imperial Spain. America haunts the above historical nar- Now, the Spanish nation is the subject of ratives by preventing them from achiev- an uninterrupted history from the Renais- ing their full Europeanness. The ghostly sance to our days. As Fusi concludes at presence of Latin America as loss ultimately the end of his book: determines and regulates the lack of a full European identity in this type of normal- Por lo que hemos visto en este libro, izing Spanish historiography. As a result, España era desde principios del siglo previous historical differences, especially XVI una nación, aunque hubiese racial and ethnic ones, as in the case of sido—como muchas naciones—una nación problemática y mal vertebrada, Jews and Arabs, amplify this European en la que coexistirían, junto con la rea- absence. lidad nacional, con la cultura común, This negative narrative of nine- culturas y realidades regionales parti- teenth-century Spain is further compli- culares y privativas más o menos acu- cated if we examine the other main trend sadas. (280) in Spanish historiography. I am referring to the most recent neoliberal, fundamen- Yet, when he narrates nineteenth-century talist historiography, which has become Spanish history, the neonational-ist/im- hegemonic since the late ’90s and relies perialist subject turns up missing once on the essay, rather than on the academic again. As he summarizes the end of the monographic, as a means to reach a wider Ancient Regime, Fusi concludes that the audience. Neonationalist/imperialist his- Spanish state dissolves in the nineteenth Joseba Gabilondo 259 century and only the nation remains in Indeed, it could be argued that the some stateless fashion: very preeminence of the ‘national de- bate’ in contemporary Spain reveals Lo que había ocurrido entre 1808 y precisely that which the contents of 1840 era, pues, formidable: España, the above mentioned works often ne- que era una nación, que había sido [...] gate: that the idea of the Spanish Na- tion or of its cultural identity might incluso el arquetipo de nación moder- even today be problematic. It is sig- na desde principios del XVI, se había nificant, for example, that the rheto- quedado sin Estado. (161) ric used in the very titles of these works to describe the ‘Spanish non-problem’ However, when Fusi summarizes nine- is that same which, according to teenth-century history, he concludes that Subirats, had been displaced: laby- the Spanish nation only comes to life in rinths, tragedies, anguish, struggle. It the twentieth century: could be argued, and rightly so, that the focus of many of these books is to La España del siglo XIX fue un país de re-examine phenomena of the past. centralismo oficial, pero de localismo But then we are faced with the para- real. Pese a las tendencias nacionali- dox of a supposedly past problem that zadoras que inspiraron la creación del is nevertheless re-examined over and Estado español moderno, la fragmen- over, in the midst of invocations to tación económica y geográfica del país the present Europeanized and ‘nor- siguió siendo considerable hasta que malized’ status of Spain. las transformaciones sociales y técnicas terminaron por crear un sistema na- Furthermore, this neonationalist/imperi- cional cohesivo, lo que no culminó alist wave of historical writing is resorting hasta las primeras décadas del siglo XX. to the historical reflection of the Genera- (165) tion of 98, which consisted of different historicist attempts to find a “soul” to the This double absence of state and na- Spanish nation—exemplified most nota- tion points to the recurrent and ghostly bly by Unamuno’s “empty Castile” and history of negativities that define nine- intrahistoria. Fusi resorts specifically to teenth-century Spain. Fusi is only one of Ortega y Gasset and rescues some of the the most prominent representatives of this latter’s less cited writings, where we find new brand of neonationalist/imperialist, once again absence and negativity as main Spanish historiography. Elena Delgado has narrative tropes. Fusi gives this revealing analyzed this new historical discourse in quote from Ortega y Gasset’s La redención detail and has masterfully pointed out its de las provincias (1931): “la auténtica solu- contradictions and obsessions. As she con- ción consiste precisamente [...] en forjar, cludes, neoliberal historical writing has por medio del localismo que hay, un become a narcissistic obsession of sorts in magnífico nacionalismo que no hay” (164- contemporary Spain, precisely at a moment 65, Fusi’s emphasis). when globalization threatens the very struc- Yet, in order to demonstrate how the ture of the nation-state. In her own words: writing of an absent nation, such as Fusi’s, 260 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies has to do with a historical oblivion or re- se acaba de indicar, entre 1808 y 1840, pression of the postcolonial ghost, allow y que constituyó una revolución in- me to concentrate on Latin America. In definida, incompleta y discontinua. Fusi’s history of the Spanish nation there Fue un proceso que conllevó dos lar- gas guerras (la guerra de Independen- is a very notable absence: the episode of cia de 1808-1813; la guerra carlista the emancipation of the Latin American de 1833-1840) y que vio la alternan- colonies in early nineteenth century. Yet, cia de ensayos constitucionales y ex- the nineteenth century is the period in periencias contrarrevolucionarias: la which Fusi’s narrative of nationalist pleni- revolución gaditana (1814-1820), el tude or fullness originating in Habsburg Trienio Constitucional (1820-23), la Spain falters most clearly. The only refer- década absolutista (1824-33), régi- ence to Latin American emancipation is men liberal—con la Constitución de 1837 como eje—y guerra civil (1833- made precisely at the end of the eigh- 40). (159-60) teenth century in order to signify the dis- integration of the Spanish empire: Fusi’s retro-active and anachronistic de- ployment of the concept of nation to impe- Bonaparte alteró decisivamente el cur- rialist Spain, only works as a discursive so de la historia española. Ocupación francesa, levantamiento popular y strategy to mask Spain’s shift from impe- guerra destruyeron el viejo orden po- rial to postimperialist state in the nine- lítico y social del país, el Antiguo Régi- teenth century. The Spanish war of “In- men, y con él, el orden colonial (que dependence” of 1808-1813 is followed by España perdió entre 1810 y 1825, the Carlist war of 1833-40; no Latin tras varios años de guerra, con la ex- American war of independence is men- cepción de Cuba, Puerto Rico y Fili- tioned. The continuity of the “Spanish pinas que conservaría hasta 1898). nation” hides the break from an imperial Muchos observadores y protagonistas to a postimperialist state, that is, the break de los sucesos [...] vieron en todo ello, that triggers the conditions themselves for por analogía con lo sucedido en Fran- cia desde 1789, la materialización de the formation of nationalism. “Forgetting” la revolución española. (158) colonial loss permits the retroactive “na- tionalization” of imperial Spain. The Di- As soon as Fusi turns the imperialist frag- saster (1898) then serves as a simple cor- mentation of the Ancient Regime into the rective to the project of a Spanish nation nineteenth-century history of nation that is well under way in the first half of building, Latin American emancipation the nineteenth century. disappears from the same narrative two pages later: The Anti-Nationalist Failure to Materialize the Absent En 1808, los primeros liberales espa- ñoles vivieron, en realidad, un espejis- Subject mo revolucionario (que no iba a ser el último). La transición del Antiguo To demonstrate how postcolonial Régimen al régimen liberal [...] fue un ghosts are rewritten as absences in Span- proceso largo que se prolongó, como ish history, I will focus now on the most Joseba Gabilondo 261 important and sophisticated essay on The founding myth of Spanish national- Spanish nationalism: José Álvarez Junco’s ism is therefore a reaction against a French Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el invasion and a surrogate form of the Latin siglo XIX, decidedly the most anti-nation- American war for colonial independence. alist and progressive work in its genre. Anderson’s hypothesis takes a more inter- Unlike most historians of this era of neo- esting turn in the case of Spain, since the liberal fundamentalism, Álvarez Junco af- Spanish nationalist model now derives firms Spanish nationalism in order to from Latin American nationalism and thus study its formation in the nineteenth cen- ultimately responds to a (post)colonial tury. He believes the nation is not a natu- imagination and logic: the (post)colony ral reality that historiography must sim- imagines the (post)empire, not the other ply represent but, rather, a historical con- way around.6 Ultimately this also proves struct that historiography must analyze that the nation does not imagine itself but and explain. is imagined by others and thus Anderson’s By focusing on the Spanish War of formulation is Cartesian rather than post- Independence against the Napoleonic in- humanist (i.e. does not incorporate the vasion (1808-14), Álvarez Junco proves criticism of psychoanalysis, poststruc- that this war became the cornerstone and turalism, etc.). reference for early Spanish nationalism, a The foundational importance of war that, as he himself explains, was fought Latin American postcoloniality in the for- at the cry of “death to the French” and mation of Spanish nationalism comes not “long live Spain” (121). Furthermore, hand in hand with another apparently as he clearly states, this war was fought contradictory fact: Latin America’s absence locally, following regional interests, rather in nineteenth-century, nationalist, Span- than national ones (125). ish discourse. Latin America is central in The Spanish historian comes to an the Spanish nationalist imaginary when interesting conclusion: the Spanish war it comes to fashioning the latter’s founda- against Napoleon had originally many tions; yet references to Latin America are names (“guerra de la Península, guerra de absent from the Spanish nationalist imagi- usurpación, revolución de España”), but nary throughout the nineteenth century. only in the 1830s and ’40s became known Álvarez Junco points out that Spain as the “War of Independence,” that is, only showed indifference towards Latin Amer- after the “other wars of independence” ica and towards the possibility of reunifi- were fought and won in Latin America by cation throughout the nineteenth cen- the Creole elite (127-28). In his own tury: words: En conjunto, las iniciativas unificado- Fue justamente en la fase final del pro- ras procedieron del Nuevo Mundo ceso americano de independencia cuan- más que de España, pues, aunque sub- do los españoles comenzaron a aplicar sistía la retórica anticolonial, en Amé- el mismo término a los acontecimien- rica la hispanofilia superaba a la hispa- tos de 1808-1814. (127) nofobia. En España, en cambio, do- 262 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
minó más bien la indiferencia, y en alism cannot think, although any other círculos gubernamentales la inactivi- nationalist discourse could have appropri- dad. (530) ated it as a “glorious” moment of expan- sion, precisely the way Francoism did later As Angel Loureiro demonstrates, Latin in the twentieth century. America only becomes an object of inter- Álvarez Junco notes that the Span- est for Spanish nationalist discourse at the ish conquest of Latin America is associ- end of the nineteenth century when the ated by nineteenth-century Spanish na- USA’s dominance threatens to marginalize tionalist discourse with the imperial rule Spain’s imperialist ascendancy over inde- of the Habsburgs, the foreign monarchs pendent Latin America (69); after 1898 who took away most popular political this interest increases exponentially. There- privileges held by Spaniards in the Middle fore, this Latin American absence in Span- Ages and also drove Spain into political ish nationalism has to be understood in over-expansion and economic bankruptcy. the light of another nationalist develop- Álvarez Junco’s analysis demonstrates that ment. nineteenth-century Spanish nationalism As Álvarez Junco explains, the Me- fashions itself as a colony vis-à-vis a Euro- dieval, Christian wars against “the Mus- pean invasion rather than as the empire lim infidels” become the other founding that was hegemonic both in Europe and myth of Spanish nationalism. That is, the American colonies in early modernity; these religious wars eventually gathered but he does not explain the origin of this under the label of Reconsquista become the apparent contradiction. other central myth of Spanish national- Although more work is necessary, one ism, which echo that of the new war of could conclude that the absence of Latin independence against Napoleon. In both America in nineteenth-century Spanish cases it becomes a matter of expelling the nationalist discourse is an ideological ne- invading enemy (424). Consequently, the cessity, allowing Spain to become “the true Spanish conquest of Latin America is ab- colonial subject” of “the true subject of sent from the two foundational myths of the war of independence,” i.e. a positive Spanish nationalism. national subject of modern, European his- However, Álvarez Junco does not ex- tory. Consequently, this nationalist refash- amine the relationship between these two ioning requires a very important negation: foundational myths and the central and Spain’s own imperialist past. Spain must formative absence of Latin America in forget its imperialist past in order to then nineteenth-century Spanish nationalist become “the true colonial subject” that discourse. The war of independence par emancipates itself from the Napoleonic excellence is the war against the Napole- invasion and, in this way, gains a place in onic invader, but it is imagined after the modern Europe. Latin American colonial wars of indepen- At the same time, the loss of the last dence. The Spanish imperialist invasion colonies in 1898 represents the catalyst for of Latin America consequently becomes a the consolidation of the new conservative rather problematic and self-canceling hegemony of Spanish nationalism, which moment of nationalist Spanish history, one then becomes obsessed with the Spanish that nineteenth-century Spanish nation- imperialist legacy in Latin America. As Joseba Gabilondo 263 several historians have demonstrated, the tors in the processes of national con- loss of the last colonies did not represent struction, one would have to add the an economic disaster; Spanish economy part played by the mournfull memory grew in the first decade of the twentieth of the lost empire, since for over a cen- century more than in any previous decade tury, there has not been a single gen- eration of Spanish intellectuals that has of the nineteenth century (Loureiro 67). not been haunted by the specter of Latin Thus, the reason for the new nationalist America. (68, my emphasis) obsession with Latin America in the af- termath of 1898 is not economic but na- While Loureiro does not elaborate the tionalist or symbolic. “spectral” presence of Latin America, I Although the nationalist reorgani- would like to join him in his criticism and zation of 1898 exceeds the limits of this claim that the postcolonial importance of analysis, I would like to put forward the Latin America in the formation of Span- hypothesis that this second period of co- ish nationalism is foundational and ghostly lonial loss does not allow Spanish nation- throughout the entire nineteenth century, alism to model itself as a modern, surro- not only after 1898.7 gate subject of colonial independence The reason for Álvarez Junco’s own from a new invader (the USA instead of dismissal or spectralization of Latin France). This time, colonial loss marks America from his study of Spanish nation- Spanish nationalism as endemic of a non- alism has to do with the nationalizing ef- modern, decadent imperialist nation. In fect that this spectral structure has even a ghostly manner, colonial loss overde- in the work of the most anti-nationalist termines Spain as a nation at a loss—a historian of Spanish nationalism. Álvarez loss that retrospectively rewrites Spanish Junco’s story too is overdetermined by the imperialist history as a history of national ghostly structure of Spanish nationalism decadence all the way back to the Renais- and ends up nationalizing his anti-nation- sance and, thus, also reestablishes its im- alist historiography. Some of the popu- perialist memory. This postimperialist and larity of Álvarez Junco’s work is due to this decadent nation no longer has a place in final nationalist overdetermination. Europe; it no longer can be modern. Loureiro’s complaint is well founded: Memory, Recognition, In contemporary discussions about the Reparation processes of national construction in Spain, the emphasis falls on the weak- My analysis of recent Spanish histo- ness of Spanish nationalism, on Spain’s riography advocates that we need to in- economic backwardness, on the role corporate loss and absence, in short any of Catholicism in the process of na- form of negativity or ghostliness, as a tional construction, or on the disrup- present component of any account of tive role that peripheral nationalisms have played in the creation of a strong Spanish history. However, if we do so, we and unitary sense of nationalism in have to revise the premise of a national Spain [...]. Without diminishing the Spanish subject. What is negative is not relevance of the above-mentioned fac- the absent, national, Spanish subject, but 264 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies rather the negative presence of Latin Scholars like myself, located in North- America and Europe, which makes im- American academic positions, constitute possible, and thus negative, a separate and a minority privileged enough to escape the self-contained, national, Spanish subject. direct hegemony of the Spanish state and To employ a Lacanian formulation, Spain its institutions—although historians such is the subject of an Atlantic symbolic or- as Pérez Garzón or Álvarez Junco are very der in which the Other is European im- meritorious exceptions. I would propose perialism. Within this order, Spanish that we engage in a spectral historiogra- (post)imperialism, rather than national- phy. This would entail several projects. ism, emerges as subject. Moreover, Spain First of all we must dialogue with anti- emerges not as a subject imagined by it- nationalist historians such as Pérez Garzón self, as Anderson would have it, but imag- or Álvarez Junco, so that our positions, or ined by (post)colonial others, hence the theirs, are not co-opted as nationally necessity to forget them and turn them overdetermined (i.e. so that we are not into ghosts.8 pitted against each other through accusa- The absences analyzed above point tions of being “Yankees” or “españolistas”). to a ghostly dynamic, which in Derrida’s Secondly we must begin to recuperate al- and Labanyi’s words, must be acknowl- ternative, non-nationalist historiography, edged and marked, so that we restitute as in the case of Américo Castro or Adolfo their historical existence; after all, ghosts de Castro y Rossi—one of the first mod- must be redressed. Furthermore, a dis- ern Spanish writers to vindicate Jews and course of redress (recognition, apology, Arabs as part of Spanish history (Álvarez and reparation) is unthinkable in a con- Junco 402). Finally, we must also begin temporary Spain overdetermined by neo- to talk about recognition, apology, and liberalism’s fundamentalist ideology. As reparation. This could have wide-range far as I know, to this day, the Spanish state effects, beginning with the reexamination has not issued a public apology to Latin of the second article of the Spanish con- America—or to the Muslim, Arab world. stitution that states “la indisoluble unidad The Sephardi community remains the only de la Nación española” and ending with Spanish precedent for redress (Gibson). the implementation of a more multicul- Yet, my own academic analysis reveals that tural curricula across the educational spec- unless we mark and restore these moments trum. of negativity in Spanish history and poli- Neonationalist/imperialist political tics, we are bound to go on living sur- laws such as the one cited above, which rounded by ghosts and scandals. Histori- are so oblivious of Spanish history, are cal oblivion, as Nietzsche or Renan would bound to legitimize fundamentalist Span- argue, is necessary for the formation of ish redeployments in Latin America and nationalism; consequently we are wit- among Latin American immigrants in nesses to a neonationalist, fundamental- Spain. In this respect, the words of Randall ist Spain that is going to grow even more Robinson on the issue of reparations to oblivious of its past in years to come. Con- African Americans in the USA are instruc- versely, the haunting of ghosts will con- tive. When reflecting on previous discus- tinue until they are recognized, apolo- sions on reparation, he cites Harvard Pro- gized, and reparations are made. fessor Derrick Bell and concludes that: Joseba Gabilondo 265
[I]f Bell is right that African Ameri- first-world states. Ultimately, once the historical cans will not be compensated for the record is settled, I believe we will resort to the massive wrongs and social injuries in- traditional use of the terms without the preposi- flicted upon them by their govern- tion. ment, during and after slavery, then 3 Even in the case of Giorgio Agamben and there is no chance that America can his elaboration of the figure of the “homo sacer” solve its racial problems. (204) and of sovereignty (Homo Sacer), he leaps from the Middle Ages to modern times and the Holo- Similarly, if Spain does not recognize its caust without making a single reference to slavery. imperialist past and its violent effects in The resulting history re-centers Europe as the epis- Latin America and Spain, then the nation- temological and historical site of universal biopolitics. Agamben’s biopolitics, which lack a alist and postcolonial problems haunting geopolitical dimension, has the effect of obliterat- Spain will never be solved. Giorgio Agam- ing the Atlantic experience of slavery. Moreover, ben’s theory on witnessing (Remnants) as there are few references to contemporary migra- well as Berel Lang’s ethical elaboration on tion in his work. For a more detailed elaboration forgiveness and revenge (Future) constitute of this problem see my forthcoming “Posnaciona- a good starting point to understand the lismo y biopolítica.” complexities of remembering the past and 4 Obviously the other main geopolitical ghosts acknowledging ghosts. of Spanish historiography are peripheral national- Moreover, if we opt for discourses of isms and subaltern subjects (rural, anarchist, etc.). redress, we will be developing a new Gender/sexuality is a biopolitical ghost. Yet, my (meta)historiography that could set the emphasis on Latin America is a first attempt to point in a different direction from which these example for the rest of Europe when it other ghosts can also be addressed. comes to assuming both our colonial past 5 As Simon Doubleday argues, British and our postimperialist ghostly present. Hispanism, because of its aura of empiricism, might Such (meta)historiography would be po- also be complicit in the articulation of a national- litically and ethically involved in a new ist/empiricist Spanish historiography and, further- multiculturalism that could be capable of more, might represent the latter’s institutional ref- acknowledging the other. Furthermore, erence (“English Hispanists”). this (meta)historiography would finally 6 In a more Lacanian way, we would have to bring into history the ghostly absences say that Spanish nationalism imagines itself as be- that endemically haunt Spanish histori- ing imagined by the Latin American (post)colony, ography and turn it into a gothic laby- which is, in turn, imagined by the Spanish em- pire. I insert the “(post)” in parenthesis because rinth of absences. what is at stake is precisely the shift from colonial to postcolonial. Even though in Latin America, Notes Spanish nationalism imagines itself being imag- 1 I would like to acknowledge the help and ined by the (deceased) Spanish empire. counsel given by Elena Delgado, José María 7 Another important line of inquiry would Portillo, Simon Doubleday, and Valerie Weinstein. represent a feminist reconsideration of nationalist Without their vast historiographic knowledge this history. Although this is a working hypothesis, I article could not have been written. would advance the thesis that, in the nineteenth 2 I employ the preposition “neo-” in order to century, the Spanish nationalist discourse shifts emphasize the new, globalized, and fundamental- from masculinist ideas of “pueblo” as agent of in- ist nature of liberalism/nationalism/imperialism in dependence to female tropes of “madre patria” as 266 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies agent of imperialist loss. The fact that, at that time, Cole, Tim. Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz women fought for citizenship, reproduction, and to Schindler How History Is Bought, Packaged, freedom of movement across the Atlantic, as testi- and Sold. New York: Routledge, 2000. fied by the scandals of “trata de blancas,” demands Comisión de constitución. “Discurso preliminar a full feminist reconsideration of my present geo- leído en las Cortes al presentar la comisión de political approach. Constitución el proyecto de ella (1812).” 23 8 As José María Portillo acknowledges, this June 2003
y su soberanía en Europa y el País Vasco (notas Pérez Garzón, Juan Sisinio, et al. La gestión de la sobre Habermas y Agamben).” Inguruak: memoria. La historia de España al servicio del Revista de la federación vasca de sociología. poder. Barcelona: Crítica, 2000. (forthcoming). Portillo, José María. “How Can a Modern History Gibson, Ian. “Desagravio Dendiente.” El País. 17 of the Basque Country Make Sense?” (un- Dec. 2002. Lexis-Nexis, Getchell Lib., Uni- published manuscript). versity of Nevada, Reno. 23 June 2003 Real Academia de la Historia. España como nación.
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Wood, Nancy. Vectors of Memory: Legacies of Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: The Johns Trauma in Postwar Europe. New York: Berg, Hopkins UP, 1978. 1999.